Dec. 26 - BOULDER - Spend 10 minutes scanning the reading material in the lobby of
the district attorney's office and you can
read about everything from "Your Rights
for Automotive Repair'' to "Legal Resources Available in Boulder County.''

But much more can be learned from
these brochures and pamphlets than the practical advice they were intended to impart. They also speak volumes about the
man who for a quarter century has, for
better or worse, shaped justice in Boulder
County.

Alex Hunter is not known as a law-and-order, lock-em-up bulldog of a prosecutor.

He's a philosophical product of the
1960s who, in his first campaign, advocated decriminalizing marijuana, and, even
as he recently celebrated his 63rd birthday, still hangs on to his youthful reformer's optimism, some say. The Boulder
County District Attorney thinks justice
doesn't necessarily mean going by the
book, and should mean trying new things.
He is a DA who once proposed treating
criminals with aerobics.

And for 26 years, his style has played
well in Boulder, if election results are a
guide.

In fact, his style may well be one reason
Hunter has endured criticisms and controversies to enjoy a tenure as long as any
current Colorado DA. Only Stuart Van
Meveren of Larimer County has served as
long.

"Boulder County expects people to be innovative,'' Hunter said in an interview
with The Denver Post, granted on the condition he not discuss the JonBenet Ramsey
murder case.

"Had I not innovated and experimented
and reached out to the edge of the envelope, people would've been disapproving of
me,'' he said.

But now, two years after a 6-year-old
beauty queen was found slain in
her wealthy parents' basement, the
whole world is looking over Hunter's shoulder, wondering about the
man in whose hands the investigation of JonBenet Ramsey's death now rests.

For those who still look up every
time a clip of JonBenet sashaying
down a pageant runway appears on
TV, for those who monitor the case
daily on the Internet, for those who
grab every People magazine or
National Enquirer with JonBene�t's
picture on the cover, the focus has
shifted in the past year from footprints in the snow and ransom
notes to Hunter's office.

The Ramsey-obsessed world has
honed in on the Boulder County
Justice Center and the grand jury
convened in September to investigate the little girl's slaying.

Followers of the case are looking
for a killer to punish. They're not
interested in reforming criminals.

And they're poring over Hunter's
record, pointing to old cases to
make the argument that Hunter is
a DA who is afraid to pull the trigger on a complicated case, that - at best - he's cowed by powerful
attorneys such as those representing John and Patsy Ramsey or that
- at worst - he's influenced by
them.

He is, some say, a DA who bends
whichever way the wind of public
opinion blows him.

"Alex is a political animal,'' said
Leigh Allen, a member of the Boulder County Rape Crisis team in
1992 when that group released a
damning report on the sentencing
of sex offenders in Boulder County.

He is also, Allen said, "a likable
character.''

And while Gov. Roy Romer denied requests to yank Hunter from
the Ramsey case, followers of the
investigation point out � quietly
� that Hunter's staff is off the
case, watching from the sidelines
as three outside prosecutors, with
Hunter at their side, lead the grand
jury inquiry.

Supporters say he is a good person, someone who cares about people.

And everybody � police officers
and attorneys, critics and supporters, even Hunter himself � agrees
that under his leadership, justice
works differently in Boulder County.

To those who offer that assessment as a compliment, Hunter's office is a "model'' of how justice can
� and should � fit the crime and
the criminal.

Phil Cherner, a former public defender, bc now in private practice as a defense attorney, ec credits Boulder County
prosecutors for dealing fairly with
defense attorneys, for being willing
to communicate.

"They don't do trials as much,
but they reach a fair outcome,''
Cherner said. If you can do that
without the time and expense of a
trial, he said, everyone, including
taxpayers, wins.

But several area attorneys say
cases rarely go to trial in Boulder
� earlier this month, prosecutors
there tried and won their first murder case in six years � because
Hunter's courtroom skills are so
limited, and his desire to maintain
a high conviction rate so strong,
he'll do anything to avoid going before a jury.

Another area attorney, who
didn't want his name used, put it
more simply: "Hunter couldn't do
an examination (of a witness at trial) to save his butt.''

Craig Silverman, a former prosecutor with the Denver DA's office
and frequent commentator on the
Ramsey case, said, "Everyone has
moments in a trial when you think
you're going to lose and you wonder if you know what the hell
you're doing. But the pros get over
it and go back the next day.'' Hunter, Silverman said, isn't one of
those.

Nationwide, about 90 percent of
criminal cases never go to trial.
Hunter's office acknowledges that
in Boulder the number is higher, at
about 93 percent.

In his interview with The Post,
Hunter said he understands no one
likes plea agreements.

"The cop doesn't like it because
he's worked hard to make a good
case .�.�. the victim doesn't like it.''

But he said, "the media is inaccurate in its assessment of how
things are done in, say, Adams
County versus Boulder. Handslaps
in Boulder, jail in Adams County''
isn't how it works, he said.

"There are differences in philosophy. And our philosophy is the result of my information gathered
from citizens about how they
would like their system to function.''

Some would argue that Hunter
relies far too much on public opinion. But he argues that as an elected official, it is his responsibility to
reflect the community's values �
as long as he upholds the law.

And he rejects the notion that he
is unduly influenced by political
considerations.

"I don't think I've decided any
case in 26 years based on politics,''
he said.

"The brand of justice coming out
of Boulder County is high quality
product. And I think if you talk to
people who know this office and
who don't have an ax to grind or a
case to peddle, you'll find that.''

Those who disagree find plenty
of ammunition in Hunter's long and
colorful career.

There are his four marriages, his
personal bankruptcy. In the 1970s,
Hunter the would-be real estate
mogul and his law partner Bill
Wise - now Hunter's chief deputy
- bought property all over Boulder County, including one development called the Village of Camelot, where the streets have names
like Lancelot Street, Guinevere
Street and Round Table Drive.
He sold his interest in that property to a pair of developers, who,
Hunter claimed, never paid for it.
That deal, piled on top of other investment missteps, left Hunter
millions of dollars in debt. In 1974,
when he filed for bankruptcy, 38
secured creditors and another dozen unsecured creditors were lined
up to collect the nearly $6 million
he owed them.

And there was the time, in 1978,
when Hunter boldly proclaimed
there would be no more deals, no
more plea bargains, offered by his
office.

Within weeks, public defenders
began complaining that they were
working night and day preparing
for trials and still were buried
alive under their caseloads. One
public defender described his
workload to The Post in 1978 as
"ungodly.''

In 1979, the policy was dropped.

Hunter has been dogged ever
since by his reputation for being
ever-ready with a deal for accused
criminals.

Some of those deals have made
headlines:

In 1991, an anguished and angry Paul and Jackie Gomez told
The Post how Hunter's office had
failed to get justice for their
daughter, Brittany Sue Gomez.

Six years earlier, when Brittany
Sue was 6 months old, her babysitter, Roberta Martinez, shook her so
hard the baby was left blind and retarded. Martinez pleaded guilty
to felony child abuse resulting in
injury. She served four years' probation and 90 days in a Boulder
halfway house.

When Brittany died, the coroner
ruled her death a homicide, a result of shaking.

Martinez was charged a second
time � with child abuse resulting
in death. But in exchange for her
guilty plea, Martinez once again
avoided prison.

Last week, Hunter recalled that
his office had asked for a harsher
sentence the first time Martinez
pleaded guilty, but the judge overruled them.

"That judge knew the baby was
not going to survive'' when he
handed down the sentence, Hunter
said.

"I think it's fair for them to be
angry at me,'' he said of the Gomezes. "They had a need to be angry at someone.''

One of Hunter's high-profile
deals was nixed by a judge.

Bert Johnson was the sheriff of
Adams County in 1984 when he was
accused of an assortment of
crimes, including sexual assault,
sexual harassment and embezzlement of public property.

Hunter was appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate the
allegations and a grand jury found
reason enough to indict Johnson.

Then, saying it was important to
end the case so the sheriff's office
could get back to work, Hunter
struck a deal in which Johnson
would plead guilty to three minor
charges and resign. All felony
charges would be dropped.

But when the deal was presented
to Judge Robert Kingsley, he rejected it � the first plea agreement the judge had rejected in 16
years.

The case went to trial, and Johnson was acquitted.
It was the last case Hunter tried
� a decision he now says has more
to do with the growth of his office
and its case volume than with the
outcome of that trial.

He acknowledged, however, that
"I have lawyers in this office
whose (courtroom) skills are much
better than mine.''

And, he said, conducting a trial is
an all-consuming endeavor. "If I'm
in a trial, I can't be there'' for deputies who want input on their
cases, Hunter said.

"And every one of these (major)
cases, I've had input in. I don't pick
up the paper in the morning and say, "Oh, geez, what have they done
today.' ''

One deal that didn't make
news at the time was one Hunter
entered into with attorneys for
Thayne Smika, the suspect in the
August 1983 shotgun slaying of
University of Colorado student Sid
Wells.

Police arrested Smika, who had
rented a room from Wells, two
months after the killing. But with
national media bearing down �
Wells had been the longtime boyfriend of Robert Redford's daughter, Shauna � Hunter's office said
there wasn't enough evidence to
prosecute.

So, outside the glare of media attention, Hunter and Smika's attorneys agreed, in writing, that the grand jury convened to investigate
the case would not indict Smika.
They also agreed that Smika's
mother and sister would not be
called as witnesses.

In exchange, Smika's attorney
allowed his client to remain in police custody, even though no charges were formally filed against him. State law gives prosecutors a
deadline for filing criminal charges, and if they don't meet it, the
suspect must be released from custody.

Hardly anybody knew about the
agreement � not Wells' mother,
June Menger; not several detectives working on the case; and not
the grand jurors who spent 33
hours hearing evidence.

June Menger said she learned of the agreement early this year,
when a television reporter handed
her a copy of it. It made her angry.
But Menger already was angry.
Back when the investigation was
new, the district attorney's office
"treated me very shabbily,'' she
said recently. And when she called,
asking to testify before the grand
jury, a deputy district attorney told
her, " 'we don't need a character
assassination of Thayne Smika,'�''
Menger recalled.

One of the detectives on the case,
who learned about the DA's agreement with Smika's attorney after
the grand jury disbanded, was so
outraged he asked a Boulder County judge whether Hunter's office
had broken any laws.

Ultimately, then-Judge Michael
Enwall found "no improprieties in
the behavior of the district attorney's office in this case.''

But, the judge continued, "that
doesn't speak to whether or not it
was a good idea for them to do
what they did.''

The detective who challenged the
agreement, Dave Hayes, is now a
deputy chief of Boulder's police department. The episode didn't make
him popular with the DA's office,
Hayes said last week. Still, he said
he would do it again.

Hayes said it took several years
before he was on good terms with
Hunter and his office.

And there was a time when much
of the Boulder police department
was perpetually peeved with its
DA. But relations have improved,
Hayes said, partly because of a
new police administration.

His own opinion of the DA's office has mellowed as well. "When
people say they don't take tough
cases, that isn't true.''

In 1982, at a defense attorney's urging, another judge ordered Hunter to stop taking suggestions from the public about
whether he should seek the death
penalty for an accused hired killer
named Robert "Tattoo Bob'' Landry.

A Florida man, Herbert David
Marant, paid Landry $10,000 to kill
his first wife, 28-year-old Mary
Ann Bryan of Longmont. Landry
and several others abducted Bryan
from the drug store where she
worked and drove her to a Boulder
County forest.

When he couldn't get his gun to
work, Landry smashed Bryan's
head and face with rocks and left
her to die in a restroom.

According to Landry's attorney, Craig Truman, the question of Landry's fate was posed at "community dialogue'' meetings, which Hunter used to host regularly to take
the public's pulse on issues.

When that failed, they moved the
trial to Durango, where their luck
was no better. Landry eventually
confessed to killing Bryan in exchange for a life sentence.

"The ultimate decision was
easy,'' Hunter said last week. One
day in court in Durango, "I looked
over at Landry gasping for breath
and asked Truman, "What's going
on with this guy?'�'' Landry's problem, it turned out, was severe emphysema.

"It was clear he was going to die
in prison,'' Hunter said.

He did, in 1989.

But long before that, Boulder
County Undersheriff Kirk Long resigned in anger over Hunter's handling of the case and fired off a scathing letter, calling the DA
"gutless.''

After Long's resignation, Boulder County law enforcement officials launched a six-month study of
felony arrests and convictions and
found that only one in 20 felony
cases in Boulder County went to
trial.

When the findings came out, officials concluded "the system isn't
working.''

"I don't think any of us knew how
bad it was. It's even worse than I
thought it was,'' said Jay Probst,
Boulder's police chief at the time.

Still, in his 26-year tenure Hunter has never been in a tight race
for re-election.

In fact, he has faced opposition
only twice.

"The facts of life are that this is
a tough county for anybody but a
Democrat to get elected in,'' said
Boulder County Republican Party
Chairman Bob Beauprez.

And the GOP leader speculated
that Boulderites applaud what
Beauprez called the "hug 'em'' approach to handling criminals.

Hunter is a product of upbringing at the hands of a politically active father � he was mayor of
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., where
Hunter was born � who taught his
son social responsibility, and an alcoholic mother whose illness took
its toll on her husband's career.

It also helped mold her son's.

In Hunter's own assessment, a
hallmark of his administration is
his effort to incorporate the county's health department and social
workers into the justice process.
And much of those collaborative
efforts are aimed at substance
abuse, because, as he puts it, "if we
could ever get a grip on alcohol
and drug abuse, it would go a long
way to solving jail and prison overcrowding.''

Some of his ideas weren't good
ones, Hunter acknowledges.

Others, including a domestic
abuse project and the same community dialogue series that got
him in hot water during the Landry
case, have won national recognition.

In the past two years, recognition has come, much more broadly,
and much of it has been highly critical.
As Hunter speaks, a framed photograph of JonBenet Ramsey sits on a shelf behind his desk.

Since her death, everything from
his trial record to his appearance
has been skewered on the Internet,
and his picture has appeared in
People and every imaginable supermarket tabloid.

His style has been examined in
The New Yorker, and his tenacity
questioned on network television.

It has made him more visible,
but also has caused him to withdraw from public comment.

Once a dependably quotable
elected official who almost always
returned reporters' calls, the naturally loquacious Hunter has retreated behind a closed door. Comments on the record from Hunter
on anything are rare; substantive
comments on the Ramsey case nonexistent.

This closed-door policy, in fact,
runs contrary to Hunter's nature
and contrary to his notion of public
service.

People have called for a special
prosecutor to replace him. When
Detective Steve Thomas resigned
from the case in disgust this past
summer, he accused Hunter of deliberately compromising the case
and cozying up to the Ramseys' attorneys.

And while Hunter would not
comment on the Ramsey investigation, he did say through spokeswoman Suzanne Laurion that he
"never knew (Ramsey attorney)
Hal Haddon before this case.''

On a "20/20'' segment devoted to
the Ramsey investigation, noted
former Los Angeles County DA
Vincent Bugliosi � who became
famous for prosecuting killer
Charles Manson � said the Ramsey case needs a tough, aggressive
prosecutor, not Alex Hunter.

While he wouldn't comment on
Bugliosi's remark directly, Hunter
did say he's more interested in
"fairness'' and getting as close to
justice as possible than in racking
up victories.

"We're not bullies. But I'd rather
be smart than be a bully.''

PROFILE

Name: Alex M. Hunter

Age: 63

Hometown: Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.

Education: University of Colorado, 1959; University of Colorado School of Law, 1963